In computing, a physical address (also real address, or binary address), is a memory address that is represented in the form of a binary number on the address bus circuitry in order to enable the data bus to access a particular storage cell of main memory, or a register of memory-mapped I/O device.
In a computer supporting virtual memory, the term physical address is used mostly to differentiate from a virtual address . In particular, in computers utilizing a memory management unit (MMU) to translate memory addresses, the virtual and physical addresses refer to an address before and after translation performed by the MMU, respectively. [1]
Depending upon its underlying computer architecture, the performance of a computer may be hindered by unaligned access to memory. For example, a 16-bit computer with a 16-bit memory data bus, such as Intel 8086, generally has less overhead if the access is aligned to an even address. In that case fetching one 16-bit value requires a single memory read operation, a single transfer over a data bus. [2] [3]
If the 16-bit data value starts at an odd address, the processor may need to perform two memory read cycles to load the value into it, i.e. one for the low address (throwing away half of it) and then a second read cycle to load the high address (throwing away again half of the retrieved data). On some processors, such as the Motorola 68000 and Motorola 68010 processors, and SPARC processors, unaligned memory accesses will result in an exception being raised (usually resulting in a software exception, such as POSIX's SIGBUS, being raised). [2]
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The direct memory access (DMA) feature allows other devices in the mother board besides the CPU to address the main memory. Such devices, therefore, also need to have a knowledge of physical addresses.
Computer data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers.
The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector.
The Motorola 68020 is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1984. A lower cost version was also made available, known as the 68EC020. In keeping with naming practices common to Motorola designs, the 68020 is usually referred to as the "020", pronounced "oh-two-oh" or "oh-twenty".
In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a very large (main) memory".
The Motorola MC68010 processor is a 16/32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1982 as the successor to the Motorola 68000. It fixes several small flaws in the 68000, and adds a few features.
In computing, endianness is the order or sequence of bytes of a word of digital data in computer memory. Endianness is primarily expressed as big-endian (BE) or little-endian (LE). A big-endian system stores the most significant byte of a word at the smallest memory address and the least significant byte at the largest. A little-endian system, in contrast, stores the least-significant byte at the smallest address.
Direct memory access (DMA) is a feature of computer systems that allows certain hardware subsystems to access main system memory independently of the central processing unit (CPU).
A memory management unit (MMU), sometimes called paged memory management unit (PMMU), is a computer hardware unit having all memory references passed through itself, primarily performing the translation of virtual memory addresses to physical addresses.
In computing, a bus error is a fault raised by hardware, notifying an operating system (OS) that a process is trying to access memory that the CPU cannot physically address: an invalid address for the address bus, hence the name. In modern use on most architectures these are much rarer than segmentation faults, which occur primarily due to memory access violations: problems in the logical address or permissions.
In computer operating systems, memory paging is a memory management scheme by which a computer stores and retrieves data from secondary storage for use in main memory. In this scheme, the operating system retrieves data from secondary storage in same-size blocks called pages. Paging is an important part of virtual memory implementations in modern operating systems, using secondary storage to let programs exceed the size of available physical memory.
A translation lookaside buffer (TLB) is a memory cache that is used to reduce the time taken to access a user memory location. It is a part of the chip's memory-management unit (MMU). The TLB stores the recent translations of virtual memory to physical memory and can be called an address-translation cache. A TLB may reside between the CPU and the CPU cache, between CPU cache and the main memory or between the different levels of the multi-level cache. The majority of desktop, laptop, and server processors include one or more TLBs in the memory-management hardware, and it is nearly always present in any processor that utilizes paged or segmented virtual memory.
In computing, a memory address is a reference to a specific memory location used at various levels by software and hardware. Memory addresses are fixed-length sequences of digits conventionally displayed and manipulated as unsigned integers. Such numerical semantic bases itself upon features of CPU, as well upon use of the memory like an array endorsed by various programming languages.
In computing, position-independent code (PIC) or position-independent executable (PIE) is a body of machine code that, being placed somewhere in the primary memory, executes properly regardless of its absolute address. PIC is commonly used for shared libraries, so that the same library code can be loaded in a location in each program address space where it does not overlap with other memory in use. PIC was also used on older computer systems that lacked an MMU, so that the operating system could keep applications away from each other even within the single address space of an MMU-less system.
A CPU cache is a hardware cache used by the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer to reduce the average cost to access data from the main memory. A cache is a smaller, faster memory, located closer to a processor core, which stores copies of the data from frequently used main memory locations. Most CPUs have a hierarchy of multiple cache levels, with separate instruction-specific and data-specific caches at level 1.
A page fault is a type of exception raised by computer hardware when a running program accesses a memory page that is not currently mapped by the memory management unit (MMU) into the virtual address space of a process. Logically, the page may be accessible to the process, but requires a mapping to be added to the process page tables, and may additionally require the actual page contents to be loaded from a backing store such as a disk. The processor's MMU detects the page fault, while the exception handling software that handles page faults is generally a part of the operating system kernel. When handling a page fault, the operating system tries to make the required page accessible at the location in physical memory or terminates the program in cases of an illegal memory access.
Memory segmentation is an operating system memory management technique of division of a computer's primary memory into segments or sections. In a computer system using segmentation, a reference to a memory location includes a value that identifies a segment and an offset within that segment. Segments or sections are also used in object files of compiled programs when they are linked together into a program image and when the image is loaded into memory.
Data is any sequence of one or more symbols. Datum is a single symbol of data. Data requires interpretation to become information. Digital data is data that is represented using the binary number system of ones (1) and zeros (0), as opposed to analog representation. In modern (post-1960) computer systems, all data is digital.
Data structure alignment is the way data is arranged and accessed in computer memory. It consists of three separate but related issues: data alignment, data structure padding, and packing.
The IBM System/360 architecture is the model independent architecture for the entire S/360 line of mainframe computers, including but not limited to the instruction set architecture. The elements of the architecture are documented in the IBM System/360 Principles of Operation and the IBM System/360 I/O Interface Channel to Control Unit Original Equipment Manufacturers' Information manuals.
A DMA attack is a type of side channel attack in computer security, in which an attacker can penetrate a computer or other device, by exploiting the presence of high-speed expansion ports that permit direct memory access (DMA).